Kilong Ung was just a teenager when the Khmer Rouge overtook his hometown of Battambang in Cambodia.

Under the new regime, he and his seven sisters, along with their parents, were forced into concentration camps, where they worked 13 hours a day on a daily ration of two tiny bowls of rice porridge and whatever rats they could catch.

His mother, father and youngest sister would become part of the estimated 2 million Cambodians who perished under the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979. During its reign, the government burned books, buried films and murdered artists, teachers, religious figures and intellectuals in an effort to purge the nation of its culture.

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Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on Wednesday that factory workers will have access to legal representation free of charge once his volunteer group of his lawyers is established, while civil society groups say the government should instead improve labour law enforcement.

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